ASU Swimming: A loss versus the Bruins leaves the women winless in Southern California

(Photo: Ross Leviton/WCSN)

There was no California love for the Sun Devil women’s swim team this weekend as they lost their second consecutive meet to the UCLA Bruins on Saturday by a score of 162-131.

This defeat, the second one of the weekend, came only hours after their meet versus the USC Trojans the day prior, which had a draining effect on Arizona State against UCLA as they placed first in only six of the sixteen events.

The 100-yard breaststroke marked the first win for the team as ASU’s Marlies Ross took the top slot with a time of 1:04.03. Ross continued to impress as she did the same in the 200-yard IM with a time of 2:04.13, and was followed by Chloe Isleta and Emily Glinecke in the only event ASU managed to sweep in the course of the meet.

Additionally, Ross also grabbed first in the 200-yard breaststroke with a race time of 2:16.67.

Kaya Philapil took the third spot, and was knocked out of her usual second place just behind Ross by UCLA freshman Kenisha Liu.

Liu made quite the impact for the Bruins because not only did she steal away points from the Devils in the 200-yard breaststroke, but she also beat Arizona co-captain Kat Simonovic in the 200-yard freestyle.

This was a huge upset as this is the race Simonovic is known for, but her time of 1:49.47 was still respectable as it was very close to the 1:49.32 that earned her a win against Denver last weekend. Nonetheless, she still amassed a number of points with this individual race. Plus, she was the only Sun Devil to place in the top three in the 100-yard butterfly with a third place time of 56.88.

In the distance category, freshman Kendall Dawson managed the third spot behind the Bruins each time in both the 500-yard and the 1000-yard freestyle races with times of 4:57.48 and 10:09.69 respectively.

Furthermore, success also came from senior co-captain Alysha Bush as she bounced back from defeats yesterday to win the 50-yard and 100-yard freestyle sprints. Bush has been a model of consistency for the team in these particular races, which is something the Sun Devils are going to need to build on in future meets

In the relays, the women put up strong performances in the 400-yard freestyle relay to close out their meet with UCLA.

The ‘A’ squad comprised of Claire Fisch, Katherine Wagner, Simonovic and Bush earned the first seed, while the ‘B’ squad consisting of Krista Kolkebeck, Indira Ceranic, Ingibjorg Jonsdottir and Dawson got second.

This was a rough weekend for the ASU women, but they have plenty of time to recuperate and prepare for the Art Adamson Invitational in the middle of November.

If there are any questions, Paige Burnell can be contacted by email at pburnell277@gmail.com, or on twitter @paige_burnell